Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Is the concert review, the cd review, [in theatre, we may add, the play review] and the once-in-a-while profile piece really all there is? What would gonzo arts reporting be and what might it do for the place?

Well, directors and actors who blog about the shows they are working on are already doing a sort of gonzo criticism; I don't think gonzo journalism would accomplish all that much though -- it's good for the critic/journalist to have that sort of experience, just because it wakes up their language, but I often find even gonzo travel writing to be a little hard to follow, depending on the narrative voice.

Theatre reviews are read today mainly as pull-quotes in publicity. In the future they will be diminished even further from their current capsule format toward star ratings. The artist/critic will become the chief source of the new criticism. Of course this criticism will come from a specific subjectivity and based in a specific aesthetic of practice but “gonzo” is probably too extreme an adjective for what will develop.